Police Scotland paid out £10k repairing damage due to potholes

Police Scotland has had to pay out nearly £10,000 since 2015 on repairing vehicles damaged by potholes, records show.
Vehicles are repaired in police workshops and the cost of fixing the damage is recharged through the forces budget. Picture Michael Gillen.Vehicles are repaired in police workshops and the cost of fixing the damage is recharged through the forces budget. Picture Michael Gillen.
Vehicles are repaired in police workshops and the cost of fixing the damage is recharged through the forces budget. Picture Michael Gillen.

The force recorded 14 cases of pothole damage out of a fleet of more than 3,500, with the cost estimated at £9,795. Three of those occurred in 2015 at a cost of £777.56, five in 2016 (£1,328.78), two in 2017 (£6,972.70) and four in 2018 (£717.96).

Vehicles are repaired in police workshops and the cost of fixing the damage is recharged through the force’s budget.

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In England, records showed that 171 emergency service vehicles had been damaged in pothole-related accidents since 2015

Among them was a fire service van that had to be written off after an incident in 2017.

Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue said the vehicle was being driven round a corner when it “hit a bump in the road awkwardly and the vehicle veered into the other carriageway and collided with a pick up van travelling in the other direction”.

Other incidents included damage to wheels and bumpers, broken springs and punctured tyres.

The details were released following Freedom of Information requests to all UK police forces, fire services and ambulance trusts.

Ten ambulance trusts, 45 fire services and 32 police forces had responded at the time of publication.

Ten police forces and six fire services had records of damage totalling around £70,000.

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The police forces are Cheshire, Derbyshire, Dyfed-Powys, Hampshire, Kent, Norfolk, Suffolk, North Wales, South Wales and Police Scotland.

The fire services are Devon and Somerset, Lancashire, London Fire Brigade, Mid and West Wales, Northumberland and Oxfordshire.

No ambulance trust had records of damage.

Some agencies said they did not hold information, others recorded no damage and six police forces stated it would take too long to go through records.

Reversing was the cause of 28 per cent of incidents of damage.

In May the AA said the total estimated bill for potholes damaging vehicles of UK motorists was more than £4.2 million so far this year.